


Angel's Vanity

by FuriousQueenMarmaroth



Series: Wholesome Azrael Love [1]
Category: Darksiders (Video Games)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-26 18:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17751551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuriousQueenMarmaroth/pseuds/FuriousQueenMarmaroth
Summary: The first time you are invited into Azrael's home.





	1. Books and Wings

Jesus tap dancing Christ.

You thanked the angel that was kind enough to fly you up to the Archangel’s study, even though she wasn’t particularly gentle about it.

You had never been in Azrael’s house before, in fact it was news to you that he didn’t just live in a library. But looking around at the rows of ceiling high bookshelves jammed with ancient scrolls and the desks stacked with yellowed pages you realized your initial assumption wasn’t that far off. Even the couch was piled with tomes, so where did he sleep?

_He’s like a crazy old cat lady... but with books... A crazy old book lady... Oh, wait. everyone already told me that. Come to think of it, I think he told me that._

A small part of you whispered that the leather bindings on the books must have been people who have overdue fees or something equally as terrifying. Those loose pages were just waiting for a poor sop to think that the angel of death was a nice guy.

“Azzi?” You called, the room of books throwing your voice back at you.

“Oh, [y/n], you’re early.” A disembodied voice came from somewhere deeper inside of the hoarder’s lair. It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it? “Just a moment.”

“I was actually gonna say sorry for being so late.” Time must of just been less important to beings that lived forever. 15 minutes getting ready here, 90 plus hours wasted on a video game because you have a pathological need for completion there, what was it really to something that’s been alive for longer than recorded history?

You held the four books closer to your chest, The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, all in separate books to keep the angel from sitting down and attempting to finish it all in one go. You learned your lesson last time with the complete works of Shakespeare.

Drifting down the path in between the bookshelves, you got a haunted mansion feel, despite the open walls and the excessive amount of light paramount to the architectural aesthetic of the Angels. Like how a forest could still be ominous in the daytime.

As you approached the second row of bookshelves, the angel in question’s head popped out from behind it. Both of you jumped, having not heard the other.

You narrowed your eyes suddenly, watching a clear drop run down his cheek. He didn’t smell sweaty, but he did smell a bit like a dirty pillow. “Ezra,” you started, watching him brighten a little at the human nickname, “why are you... wet?”

You got closer and recoiled in fear once you saw his bare shoulder, “Why are you naked?!”

“Why am-I am not.” His ears turned red as he stepped out to show off his wet wings and fully robed bottom half defensively, “I was taking a bath.”

Thoughts of an angel flapping around in a bird bath like a swallow came to mind, but you didn’t dare to speak your thoughts. You did, however, snort while trying to stifle a giggle.

“Is it funny? Did you not think I bathed?” He was looking a little offended now.

“I-No.” Time to clear this up with some science before he banishes you from libraries forever, “Well, angel wings look more like owl or pigeon wings than any other kind of bird wing, so I assumed, like those birds, you had specialized powder down feathers instead of using preen oil like other birds, so therefore you would do something like a dust bath and try to avoid water emersion.” You replenished your breath and waited to see if this had smoothed over any ruffled feathers, pun fully intended and saved for a later date.

Azrael nodded in acceptance of this answer and outstretched an impressive, damp wing as a visual. “I do have powder downs, but I do need to occasionally emerse myself before a long preen. That way they’re flexible.” In demonstration he softly moved his wings, allowing his impossibly long remiges to gracefully flow like ripples in a pond.

You looked from his wing to his exposed chest. You had never seen an actual angel chest before, nor did you believe you would ever get the chance to again. The first thing you noticed was how much his barrel chest expanded with every long, slow breath. Made sense, his lungs and heart were built for high altitudes and the support of those massive wings. 

The second thing you noticed was how thin he actually was. You had expected at least some measure of jiggle or possibly even an Adonis style body that you had always thought an angel would have, but aside from a small amount of lean muscle he was as thin as a Wicked. 

And the last, and perhaps most bizarre, thing was hair. Honest to god, though it was white and as thin as an adolescent boy’s, there was chest hair on him. 

Seeing you looking, he cleared his throat and waved his hand in the direction he had appeared. He accepted your gifts as you walked past, as awkwardly as you had offered them. There was a room there that you weren’t aware of.

_If there’s more books in there I’m leaving._

There were a couple, but they were the ones you had given him, so it was less creepy. It was a nice room, slightly dimmer than the rest of the White City as thin beige curtains had been drawn to give the Archangel his privacy. A large, round bed sat in the middle of the room, decorated with pillows of various shapes and sizes. A bath of similar shape and size sat in the ground like a small pool in an offshoot of a room.

“Tea?” He asked, holding a teapot in his hands, standing at a small table filled with pages and jars.

“Sure.” You continued to explore the bizarre living quarters as he poured, “I’ve never had angel tea before.”

Two lone pieces of artwork hung on his otherwise barren walls, one a small painting of what the White City looked like from the ground, the other a slightly larger painting of a tulip farm in the spring. You recognized them immediately. They were yours, given to Azrael when he had asked for human perspective, just before he started to ask you to come to the White City for visits. You didn’t know he had kept them, yet alone hung them in his bedroom.

A cup of tea was held out, and you took it daintily in both hands by the little plate underneath it. There was no doubt in your mind that the large white and gold cup was the most expensive thing you were ever going to hold in your life. Now you could only stare at it like an idiot, not knowing the proper angelic code for tea sipping.

“Why am I here?” You asked him, trying not to seem rude but pretty sure he didn’t greet all of his friends shirtless.

“Didn’t I tell you?” He obsessively straightened the painting you were staring at, as if your careful scrutiny was tilting it ever so slightly. The heat coming off of him was immense, it felt like he could incubate an egg if he wanted to.

Maybe that was the point?

“Um, no.” Suddenly you weren’t too sure, “Did you?”

“I thought I did, I thought that was why you were here.” He tilted it slightly too far to the left.

“No, you just told me to come over and when I asked why you had that dead eyed stare you always get when you’re busy.” You went to fix it but over corrected it slightly too far to the right.

“I see.” Too far to the left.

“Well since I’m here, what did you need?” Too far right.

“I was going to ask for your help preening. I can’t reach the ones on my back, you see.” Too far left again.

“And you want a human to do it?” Just about got it. “Wouldn’t an angel actually know what to do?”

“True as that may be, I must confess that I enjoy your company.”  Almost.

“I enjoy your company too.” There. Both of you had tea in one hand and a side of the perfectly straight painting in the other. You shared a moment of victory over the chaos of the universe, and you celebrated with a sip of tea and a companionable silence.

“Come, I’ll show you what must be done,” he finally said, ushering you over to his table of tinctures and tonics for a lesson on how to take care of angel wings.

It wasn’t all that marketable of a skill, but you were always eager to learn something new, and the delicate balance between grooming skin, hair and feathers was a conundrum you often pondered.


	2. Maoffas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pleasant enough conversation over preening turns serious after Azrael realizes he's made a very wrong assumption.

It wasn’t too bad, helping an angel preen. Tedious though it was, it felt incredibly intimate. You would dip your fingers in a special oil and then ever so delicately expend it by pinching and straightening each individual feather from tip to base. Azrael was quite a bit faster than you, unsurprising since he had millennia to practice.

The talks were pleasant enough. He asked about human culture, human literature, or even just your human opinion on nonhuman topics.

“Why are you asking me all of this?” You laughed nervously after having inadvertently opened up the can of worms that was you vague understanding of Christianity.

“I find your perspective,” his face drifted softly in the direction of the painting of the White City, “sui generis.”

“Pretty word, but I don’t think a short person’s view of the City qualifies me as unique as you might think.” 

“More than you might imagine.” He once again turned to pinching his feathers, clearly all he was willing to say on the matter, but he had ceased to ask his relentless questions.

The eternal day of the city distorted your fragile human sense of time. After awhile you could only tell the passage of time by the faint sound of Azrael’s massive heart and his slow, steady intake of air. It finally started to dawn on you just how vulnerable he had made himself to you, allowing you behind him, nay, allowing you to touch him.

It had to mean something for him to allow a human to do this.

“Hey, Ezra?” You started, heart in your throat, ready to ask the damning question.

“Yes?” He mumbled into his cup of tea.

“Do you,” you chickened out, “have any nicknames for me? Like how I call you Ezra?”

“Maoffas. It means “not to be measured” in the ancient language.” He admitted. “You never did tell me what “Ezra” means.”

“Oh, well,” you cleared your throat and prepared to tell him the story, “I misheard your name as Ezrael, and I had a friend on Earth named Ezra so it kinda just stuck I guess. “Ezra” is Hebrew for “to help” if you’re still curious.”

“I shall like it all the same.” You couldn’t see his face, but you could have sworn you heard a smile in his voice.

More comfortable silence as you finished the last of the feathers. After what seemed like a day, you honestly wondered if you would grow old and die before the angel could fly again, even with Azrael’s speedy fingers. You did have to admit that they looked really nice now, though.

“Who’s the angel that usually helps you?” You inquired as you wiped your sticky and wrinkled fingers on a cloth.

“Oh, they’re a pair of twins, I’m not sure if you would know them.”

“Wait, you usually have more than one person helping you?”

"Yes."

“Why didn’t they come today? They could have shown me a thing or two.”

“I,” he cleared his throat, “wanted to be alone with you.”

Whoop, there it is. You held your hands to your hot face in an attempt to hide the violent blush. It was a weird first date to have. Unless this really was the start of a horror movie and he wanted to turn you into a book cover as you had originally feared.

“Why-why would that be?”

“Um.” One of his long hands rubbed a line in his sternum, “Well, our courtship is going well-”

Wait, what? “As in this isn’t the start of it?”

"No?"

“Okay when do you think it started?”

“Were the paintings not a gift?”

“They were...”

_I was just trying to be nice..._

The events of the past months suddenly took on a different tone: humming the same song as him, swaying in nerves and thinking he was swaying to not make you uncomfortable, offering pastries. Suddenly you realized what you had originally thought was being a good host was just a more human specific version of a bird mating ritual. And now he had taken you to his nest, and shown you is chest. You were pretty sure you had encroached upon endgame territory without even knowing it.

“And how far do you think we are in this courtship?”

“Um.” His arms locked in a cage around his chest. “You seemed very eager with your gifts, I assumed you were unhappy with the slow development. So, um...” A short cough escaped him as he glanced towards the bed.

The weird looks from the other angels made sense now. It was the same reaction people had to two people groping each other in public, which seemed to be the angelic equivalent of what you two were doing. You prayed as you covered your face in shame that you could just slither into a hole and stay there.

All that being said, you were a little flattered. You hadn’t thought of Azrael as just a friend for quite some time, but you certainly didn’t mean to force yourself on him so relentlessly.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, humans really do just bring gifts to their friends with no strings attached. I really didn’t mean to... _flaunt_ myself in front of you and I certainly didn’t mean to make things weird between you and the other angels.” Grateful that your hands were still firmly covering your face, your inner turmoil started to leak free.

The angel was silent for quite some time before he finally muttered, “I hated these paintings, you know.”

When you looked up, he was facing away from you with his hands clasped together behind a straight back. Looking at your paintings.

_He’s being honest now. Awesome. I totally needed to hear how another one of my friends actually thinks of me._

“You’re very talented, [y/n]. They’re beautiful pieces of art, but I couldn’t help but hate them immediately. I couldn’t understand how the simplicity of flowers could be more appealing than the White City. I still can’t. But now I can’t unsee this,” he tenderly stroked the rim of the painting in question, “this sadness, these empty attempts at meaning.” 

“And this,” he walked over to the one on the opposite wall, the one of the tulip farm, “is a farm that grows flowers that last little more than a few weeks. So why does it seem so much more purposeful? Why is it that something that stands as an eternal monument to all of Creation pale in comparison to tulips? I couldn’t rest until I knew the person that sent them was deranged.”

Those pale eyes turned on you once again, “I will put aside all conventions, all that I consider to be social decency, and tell you true what I feel: I need you to know what it means when I call you Moaffas, I mean that your mind is worth more to me than all of the knowledgeable texts under my care. If all else perished and you remained, I should continue to be; and if all else remained and you were annihilated, the universe would turn into a mighty stranger, and I should not seem a part of it.” He placed his hands on either side of your face, meaningfully wiping away the tears as they fell, “I would be honored continue courting you, with your permission.”

“That’s beautiful, Azzi.” You touched his cool and still slightly greasy hands, “Too bad you stole that line from Wuthering Heights.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice. I was nervous and that was all that came to mind.”

You laughed anyways, “You can continue “courting” me. How about a movie night at my place?”

With a smile he placed a gentle kiss on your forehead, “I don’t know what that means, but I’ll accept anyways.”


	3. Azrael's Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Upon visiting you on Earth, Azrael decided to bring you a gift of his own.

You had always brought Azrael books when you went to visit him. He was a scholar and a bit of a, shall we say, enthusiast, so it seemed appropriate at the time.

That being said, you didn't expect him to bring you a gift when he came to visit you. Though you supposed he could have confused your eagerness to show him your favorite books as some kind of scholarly exchange.

"Um," he held it out without ceremony, "these are for you."

The stack of parchment was wrapped in a ribbon like Christmas divorce papers. The handwriting was so elegant and neat that you could see him written on every page. And they smelled like Azrael, then again, if there was ever a being in all of Creation that would smell like ink and paper, it was Azrael.

Your joy caved in on itself as you looked harder at what was written.

You couldn't read it.

The fact that you didn't read angelic script had never come up in conversation. It was hurtful to think of breaking the news of your illiteracy now that he had brought you something.

Seeing your dismay, he explained, "I am aware you don't read the Ancient Language-"

_Then why the hell would you bring me this?_

"-and I thought I would offer this as a symbol of my willingness to teach you." When you still didn't look up from the manuscript, he shuffled his wings. "It's the first chapter ofyour favorite book- Oh!"

You wrapped your arms tightly around his waist before he could finish, startling the poor man. He was warm and soft. A little too warm and soft.

It was a question you pondered almost constantly since you had helped him preen: how was he able to thread those wings into his characteristic robe? And now you knew the answer was that he quite simply didn't.

_Now, now. Don't make this weird. What's the use of illusion magic if you can't walk around naked once in awhile?_

In lieu of recoiling in shock, you gave him a quick squeeze before letting go. "Thank you, Azzi. This is really sweet."

"I respect fellow scholars and keekers of truth. After all, you never know when a little forbidden knowledge will be of use."

"And you come across forbidden stuff a lot? As a librarian?"

The twitch of his lip was small, but unmistakably impish, "Forgive me, I seem to have misspoke. I wasn't speaking from personal experience."

_Oh, you little sinner..._

 


End file.
